Comic Books

With the start of the semester approaching, it is as good a time as any to survey recently read comic books.

But first, I'll register my old complaint about the use of the term "graphic novel." It has become fashionable of late (well, "of late" being the last 20 years) to call these things "graphic novels." This is all part of the campaign to stop the shocked looked one gets when one says, "I recently read a comic book." Everyone knows comic books are for kids, so nobody intelligent would ever read one. Of course, the same people who think only an idiot would read comic books, cheerfully watch TV sitcoms and reality shows and cartoon network. It's odd. I have no idea why the perception persists that comic books are only for children and feeble intellects. The writing in your average comic book is bad--about as bad as that in your average John Grisham or Dan Brown novel. The writing in a good comic book is, well, outstanding. And, a good comic book can do things that simply can't be done in any other medium--much like a good movie can only do things which can only be done in the movies. So, yeah, I read comic books.

I love comic books as a matter of fact--especially superhero comic books. I loved them ever since I was a kid. But, I could never afford them when I was a kid. Libraries never had comic books--and believe me, I checked all the time--so I had to read my friends' comic books if I ever wanted to read them. It has only been recently that I had the discretionary income necessary to convince myself I could start buying them. And, the new generation of comic books contains some amazing work.

But, onto the reviews:

1. Loeb and Lee, Batman: Hush
One of the best Batman tales I have read. The story is fantastic and the artwork is simply amazing. It isn't a good as Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (but nothing in the Batman series is), but it is a solid mystery story. It does a great job thinking about the psyche of Batman--who is probably the most interesting psychological case among superheroes.

2. Morrison and McKean, Arkham Asylum
After finishing Hush, I reread this one. I am still of mixed mind about it. As a story, it is seriously lacking, but that is part of the point. It is more a Nightmare, than a Story. The art fits that illusion nicely--it has a dreamy, nightmarish quality throughout. The art doesn't do much for me, but it certainly coveys a mood nicely. But, on the whole, it is a good attempt to do something different, but not an entirely successful attempt.

3. Marvel, the Civil War series
This was one of those whole publishing company stunts from a few years back. There is a seven comic book series called Civil War, but all the individual titles in the Marvel Universe ran stories at the same time along the same story arc. For a brief time a few years back, Marvel allowed a company (GIT) to make PDFs of all the issues of assorted series and sell them on a single DVD. So, I have the Civil War DVD, which had every issue in the storyline. I just finished reading them all. The story was...OK. The premise was good--should superheros be forced to register as government agents or be allowed to continue as vigilantes? The heroes split nicely into two camps. At first, the arguments for each side were nicely balanced. But, as the story developed, it got weaker. The pro-registration side started losing handily in the debate as the debate started sounding more and more like a debate about the Patriot Act--so the pro-Registration Act people had lame arguments set up merely to be straw men for the nicely worded anti-Registration Act people. For awhile, I thought it was doomed to be an anti-George Bush series, but it recovered in the end and returned to having some nuance. But, even still, the end of the whole story was very, very lame. The whole thing wrapped up in the way you would expect a 10 year old to wrap up a story. Seriously, a 10 year old would write an ending just like the one they wrote. Painful. So, on the whole...OK.

I also have a bunch of other series from this DVD run; they have been really great to read--it is PDFs of all those comics I wanted to read when I was young.

4. Smith, Bone
I just started this series. Clara is reading it with me. So far, very, very good.